The paper covers a research in the knowledge management area for automotive industries. A preliminary study on the knowledge management was conducted in the local automotive companies for obtaining an initial overview of the practice of knowledge management in the Malaysian automotive industry. The 72 managers and engineers from six automotive companies in Malaysia were the respondents for this study. The data were interpreted on the basis of weighted scores for each parameter. The final conclusions then were prepared on the basis of a knowledge management index (KMI). The interpretation of data reveals that the knowledge management index (KMI) in the three knowledge management aspects of (i) information technology, (ii) knowledge acquisition, and (iii) understanding and commitment were the highest while the knowledge management index (KMI) for the two other aspects of knowledge management aspects of (i) mechanism of assessment and (ii) acknowledgement were the lowest among the eleven considered aspects. From this data interpretation, it can be concluded that the practice of knowledge management in the Malaysian automotive industry was still in the early stage and need to be improved in order to guarantee the competitive success in the competitive world today.